


Demons Don't Grow Azaleas

by malicegeres



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: And the Bailey School Kids Are an Angel and Demon, Established Relationship, F/F, Like Imagine Bailey School Kids But Everyone's Retired and Gay, M/M, Monster of the Week, Mystery, Neighbors, Snooping, South Downs Cottage (Good Omens), Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-10-29 04:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20790374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malicegeres/pseuds/malicegeres
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale move to the South Downs and realize their neighbors aren't just strange—they'reinhumanlystrange!





	Demons Don't Grow Azaleas

**Author's Note:**

> So, basically, this is an extremely silly idea I had where it's a Monster of the Week plot every chapter but the monster is one of Az and Crow's gay neighbors or whatever. This is a low pressure fun project for me and should be fine for you to wait between chapters. I have no planned end point and intend to add to this as ideas for shenanigans come to me. Enjoy!

Crowley and Aziraphale had bought their cottage together with a certain picture of their new life together in mind. Crowley would tend his garden, Aziraphale would read his books, and that would be that. They hadn't thought far ahead enough to consider what their social life would be like. They'd have each other, and they'd have each other completely. That sounded like enough to them.

So they weren't quite sure what to do when, two days after they’d moved the last of their things from London to the new house, a woman showed up on their doorstep with a plate of biscuits. She looked to be in her mid-thirties, with dark hair and round eyes that were an impossible shade of black. Her hair hung around her plump face in loose, beachy waves, and she wore a jacket made of a strange, spotted grey leather neither Crowley nor Aziraphale recognized.

"Hello!" she said with a bright grin. She spoke with the quick, cheery lilt of an Irish accent. ”I'm Celia. I live just down the road and wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.” She balanced the biscuits on her left hand and offered her right to Crowley, the closest person to her.

“Anthony Crowley,” said Crowley, taking it and giving it a firm shake before taking the plate from her. "It's nice to meet you."

Celia gasped slightly and frowned down at his hand. “Ooh! Sorry, it was a bit colder than I was expecting.” Then she looked up and her smile slotted firmly into place. “Hope it was a nice, stiff drink in your hand that’s given it such a chill.”

Crowley forced himself to smile back and pushed out a single chuckle for good measure. “I do run a bit cold.” He put his hand on the small of Aziraphale’s back. “This one here runs warm, though, so we’re a good match.”

Aziraphale smiled at him. “So long as your feet don’t nick me at night.” Then he turned to Celia and offered his hand. “It’s such a pleasure to meet you, my dear. I'm..." He paused. Then he stared at Crowley in a panic.

Crowley stared back at him, one eyebrow raised calmly over his sunglasses. If Aziraphale hadn't bothered to come up with a proper human name for himself, _he_ certainly wasn't going to help him.

"I- Er- A... A... Ari! Ari Fell is my name."

Crowley snorted. "Knew you'd get there eventually, angel."

Celia’s smile widened. “How lovely!” She shook his hand and inclined her head down the street. “Well it's a pleasure to meet you, too, Ari. My wife Fiona and I live at number twenty-three. She’s a bit shy, but she was the one who made the biscuits and she’s going to be pleased as punch to know there’s another matched pair in the neighborhood.”

Aziraphale put an arm around Crowley and gave the back of his neck a sharp flick as his arm slid over it. “Thank you for the welcome," he said, "and for the biscuits. We’re still unpacking, but we’d love to have you over once we're a bit more settled. After all, we ‘matched pairs’ ought to stick together.”

"Oh, that sounds grand. She'll be so excited." She gave them a little wave. "We'll be in touch!"

Aziraphale and Crowley waved goodbye and watched her go, and when they'd closed and locked the door Crowley said, "She was a bit odd, wasn't she?"

"Was she?" asked Aziraphale, taking the biscuit plate from Crowley and pulling the plastic back to sniff them. "Oh, those smell delicious."

"Something about her eyes," said Crowley. He grabbed a biscuit, took a bite, and gestured with it in hand as he continued to speak with his mouth full. "They were funny-looking."

Aziraphale took a bite of biscuit and chewed thoughtfully. He swallowed. "_Your_ eyes are funny-looking," he pointed out.

"I suppose that's true." said Crowley, pulling his sunglasses off and gazing thoughtfully at what remained of his biscuit. "If she keeps bringing these over, I'm willing to let her have her secrets.

Meanwhile, at number twenty-three, Celia returned home to her wife.

"How were the new neighbors?" Fiona called from the living room.

"They were nice," Celia called back, following her voice. She got to the living room and sat down on the sofa next to her. "I think they're a couple of city boys who got sick of the city. Married, I think, though they weren't wearing rings or anything. Definitely together, though."

She lit up. "Oh, really? That's wonderful! It's about time we got some more of us on this street."

"It's funny, though," Celia continued, "it's cloudy out, but the skinny one walked out of the house wearing sunglasses and kept them on the whole time. And his hand was freezing, too. I mean, really freezing. It was like shaking hands with a dead man."

"Oooooh, maybe he _is_," Fiona droned, wiggling her fingers at Celia. "I'm sure he'd just been touching something cold."

"I don't know," she said, her lips twisting diagonally down her face. "The tall one tried to introduce himself to me and couldn't remember his own name. Like he was coming up with it on the fly or something. They were just odd."

"You're odd, darling," Fiona pointed out, sitting up and kissing her cheek.

"I suppose that's true," said Celia with a smile. "Well, we have a standing invitation to come over once they're settled in. We can do some reconnaissance then."

* * *

The Crowley-Fell household really did need a lot of work. Crowley and Aziraphale were constantly at each other’s throats over whose things went where and when they should be in one another’s spaces as they adjusted to living together for the first time, so their interactions with their new neighbors were limited.

One night, after a particularly heated argument over where Crowley’s CD collection ought to go, he walked away from the argument and into the front garden to smoke a cigarette and have a word with a rose bush that wasn't pulling its weight. He was whispering to it exactly what he'd do if it didn't hurry up its blooming, holding his cigarette dangerously close to one of its leaves to make his point, when he was startled by a high-pitched bark from over the fence. He turned around and glared at it through his sunglasses, only to see a small blonde woman shushing an overly excited border collie.

"Jamie, shut up!" she hissed. She looked up at Crowley and grimaced. "Sorry about him! I don't know what's got into him, he's normally perfectly friendly."

The dog growled at Crowley, and Crowley resisted the urge to hiss at him. Animals didn't like demons as a rule. He tried not to take it too personally. "That's alright," he called back. Then he paused. "Your name isn't Fiona, is it?"

Her grimace became a smile. "Guilty. It was Anthony, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." He smiled back. "Thanks for the biscuits. They were really good. My, er..." He jerked a thumb back at the house. "Az- _Ari_ loved them as well."

Fiona seemed to pause at Crowley's hesitation, but her smile stayed firmly affixed to her face. "Oh, good," she said. Then she tilted her head at him. "Are you wearing sunglasses?"

"Eye condition," said Crowley quickly. "I'm really sensitive to light."

"It's dark out."

"..._Really_ sensitive to light."

Fiona furrowed her brow. She was quiet for a moment, and then she asked, "What's the name of the condition?"

"It's, um... It's... Colubrumitis," he lied, grateful that he always had Latin to fall back on. "It's very rare."

"Fascinating," she said skeptically.

Jamie growled.

"Quiet, you," she scolded. "Well, I think I'd better let the dog walk whatever his attitude problem is off. Nice to finally meet you, Anthony."

"Likewise," said Crowley. "Night."

They went their separate ways, Crowley to pretend it never happened, Fiona to tell Celia every last detail and see what she made of it.

The next week things were going a lot better in the house, and Aziraphale decided he wanted to take a nice, long stroll to the beach. It was a little overcast, and if Crowley was there he wouldn't have enjoyed it much, but wrapped in a scarf and clutching a thermos of cocoa Aziraphale was quite content to sit on his blanket and read as his breath took on the sea's gentle cadence. Sometimes he'd look out to the water and catch sunlight glinting off the grey water, or a flock of seabirds taking off, or a seal's head bobbing above the surface before disappearing down again.

He looked up after a particularly moving passage and saw that the seal had landed on a rock. It seemed to be staring at him, and as soon as he made eye contact it dove into the ocean again. As the afternoon wore on he kept peering over the pages of his book, and every other time the seal was still there and still looking at him. The fourth time it happened, he shut his book and marched over to the shore.

"Hullo," he called. "May I help you?"

The seal panicked and dove down. Aziraphale waited, but he didn't see it rise to the surface again.

Later, when he was home and curled under a blanket, he looked out the window and saw Celia biking down the road on a beach cruiser. Her hair was wet and wavy with salt.

The next Sunday, Crowley and Aziraphale were ready to welcome guests at last. It had been ages since Aziraphale had hosted, at least since the Wilde days, and he was thrilled to be able to do so again. Crowley had seldom done it at all in his long life, and he was never all that keen on being the center of a party, but he managed to have a good time curating the music and playing bartender for everyone. Fiona and Celia brought wine and some little savory puff pastry snacks they'd whipped up, and at first everything seemed to be going smoothly.

Then Aziraphale made the mistake of miracling a third glass of wine instead of getting up for more.

Fiona's eyes snapped to his. She set the whiskey sour Crowley had made her down. "How did you do that?"

Celia put a hand on her arm. "Fiona, darling, come on..."

"Don't you 'darling' me," she snapped. "You saw him do it, too, didn't you?"

"Well she certainly didn't see me do anything strange at the beach," Aziraphale muttered.

Celia groaned, and Fiona rounded on her. "Oh don't tell me you— _In front of our neighbor?_"

Crowley bustled into the room with the Hemingway daiquiri Celia had asked for. "What's all this?"

Celia snatched the daiquiri from his hand. "Don't you start playing dumb with us," she said. "We've got a good hunch what you are. You drive impossibly fast. Your skin is ice cold. Sometimes you speak like you don't know your own partner's name. And you wear sunglasses, even when you don't need to. I know what you are."

He raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I'd love to hear this one."

"You're a vampire," she said with an air of finality.

He let out a long, heavy sigh. "Why do people always jump to vampire? I love the sun! I love food!" He glared at her. "How do you explain Aziraphale, then?"

"Ari," Aziraphale corrected him under his breath.

"I think we're past pseudonyms, angel," he hissed acidly. "Go on. What's your guess for him?"

Celia looked at Fiona, who stared at Aziraphale for a moment and then said, "...Wizard...?"

"No," said Aziraphale. He took another pastry and popped it in his mouth, looking bored.

"Fine," said Celia, crossing her arms. "What am I, then?"

"Selkie," said Crowley and Aziraphale in unison.

Her arms uncrossed and flew into the air, seemingly of their own volition. "Fine! Fine, I give up! What are you?"

Aziraphale swallowed. "Well, I'm an angel," he explained, "and Crowley's a demon."

Crowley pulled off his sunglasses. "Retired," he added helpfully.

Fiona sat back in her chair and drained her glass. "So God's real, then?"

Celia sighed. “Fiona’s just a human,” she said by way of apology.

"Oh dear," said Aziraphale. He waved a hand, and her glass filled itself again. "Crowley, darling, why don't you answer their questions for now? I've got to get some of our better stuff from the cellar."


End file.
